We are combining two days into this one story. This is another two night stay in a place called Udaipur the City of Lakes. We drove from Jodhpur to Udaipur which was another 300+ km day (with a/c all day) visited the Ranakpur Jain Temple along the way arriving in Udaipur late in the afternoon. Next day we were scheduled to visit the sites of Udaipur in the morning and have a cruise on Lake Pichola in the afternoon visiting the Palace built on an island in the lake. Here is how it all unfolded.
For some reason Ram did not want to depart until 9:30 today. This was a bit confusing considering the distance to travel. We trusted him so had a relaxing morning then on the dot of 9:30 we jumped into the cocoon and headed out of Jodhpur.
Once again Ram used 4th gear magnificently in the city traffic. It was the usual cars, trucks, autos everywhere with horns blaring but with many shudders we 'glided' effortlessly out of the city.
Roads here are really quite horrendous with huge craters everywhere. I was going to use the word pothole there (as we do in Oz for a hole in the road) but it is just the wrong word for Indian roads. Small cars have been lost for days in these craters. This is one of the reasons for slow travel. Another is that to reduce speeding on the open road the Indian Transport Department has come up with this great idea of putting speed bumps on the highway.
These are laid in a series of three about 50 cm apart. They are well disguised and have no warning. THEY ARE EFFECTIVE! You either pay attention and slow to a crawl to get over them or you manoeuvre your car to the side of the road and the tow truck comes to get you after you have broken your axle. There are lots of cars on the side of the road as you drive past these incredibly devised traffic calmers.
Sometimes you are even lucky enough to get the combined traffic calmer/crater combination which is a real treat and adds to the excitement. I am amazed at the skill of Ram and how he can negotiate these obstacles in 4th. You don't have to change down as you don't actually stop.
India fact: Every 400 miles you travel there is a new language to learn. The diversification of language here is incredible. There are 15 major languages and over 100 minor ones. The few words and phrases (Tamil) that Lynn has mastered are useless here. Although Hindi is India's official language, English is also enshrined in the constitution for a wide range of official purposes, notably communication between Hindi and non-Hindi states. All of these languages also have their own scripts. It plays havoc with National Broadcasting.
It was a long drive to Ranakpur, no stopping Ram today - with the a/c fixed and a late start he was a man on a mission. We had a supply of biscuits, bananas and Tic Tac's which we continued to feed him as he relentlessly pushed on to our goal. We arrived at about 1:15 pm and received our instructions.
No entry fee but a 50 rupee fee for a camera or 200 rupees for a movie camera. This is standard across every place you visit with some policing it more than others. Seeing that most cameras take both still and video and every phone takes both, it becomes a bit of a joke for a lot of people. We continue to try to do the right thing except here when we are nearly at the entrance and I remember I have the movie camera in my pocket.
They have the electronic wand out and there are beeps everywhere as they detect people's phones and take them away. When they 'wand' me I go off like the 1812 overture. Indian mobile in one pocket, Aust mobile in another with the movie camera. Will IW ever see me again? What does the Jain sect say about forgiveness - if only I had done more reading in comparative religions.
I immediately pulled out my Indian phone and could show it was so cheap that it did not have a camera. Then the guard pointed to my other pocket and inspiration came from somewhere beyond me as I blurted out "My Australian phone - doesn't work here". I don't know if the guard could speak English but he just waved me through.
I looked around for IW but at this stage she had distanced herself from me and was mixing with a group of Italians using her twenty words of Italian. Unfortunately none of the Italians wanted to sell her any ham, cheese or bread.
She claims it was a deliberate ploy in case I got arrested and threatened with deportation. It has happened before to the Wallis name. Of course I believed her, was reunited and off we went to view the temple.
This is one of the five main holy places of the Jain sect. Though over 500 years old, the temple here is very well preserved and is in good condition. The temple has twenty-nine halls which contain 1,444 marble pillars of which no two are alike. I was personally unable to prove this point as in searching, they all looked alike and I kept losing where I was up to.
One of the problems inside was that there were signs that you could take photos of anything except Jain gods. Now this place was full of strange and interesting sculptures and as previously mentioned, I would not at this point of the tour class either IW or I as a Jain expert. We do our best and as we swing around a corner there are all these niches in the wall with barred gates. I immediately became an expert in what a Jain god looks like.
Unfortunately a young Indian guy in front of me was not as clever and was happily snapping away when the whistles began to blow and the camera police started to run from everywhere. The young Indian started to run as well.
Question: Where do you hide in a Jain temple that you have been inside for ten minutes when being chased by people who live there?
Answer: Not behind one of the 1,444 columns that look different from each other. Especially if the columns are thinner than you.
The young Indian was given a good talking to then taken off somewhere, probably to have the photos deleted and be evicted from the site. I thought of many other options but the editor thought that we should go with that one. Shame really as the one about .... sorry, can't tell you.
After we rejoined Ram we had 50 km to go to reach Udaipur. Once again I would like to point out that these were 50 Indian kms on Indian roads. Enough said, it took us two hours to reach our hotel.
I cannot remember if I have delivered this piece of advice to anyone thinking of travelling to India, but if I have, I will tell you again as it is good to know. Never, never, never ask an Indian how far it is to somewhere but instead ask them how long it will take to get there. They are very good at knowing travelling times but are appallingly bad at knowing how far it is.
We arrived at the Ram Pratap Palace at about 4:30 pm. It has been a great day and we have laughed a lot, fed Ram a lot, and arrived safely. Three big pluses.
We dined that night at the restaurant across the road from our hotel. It is a delightful garden restaurant with tables in the open air right on Lake Pichola and is a beautiful setting and the food was great and the famous Indian exfoliation breezes has been replaced by a gentle warm breeze off the lake.
Dinner by Lake Pichola
After breakfast we visited the small shop in the Hotel and again heard the story about how we were visiting in the wrong season as it was too hot and we related back to him the story about it was this time or never.
He thanked us for coming to have a look and then went into the standard story about how in low season they get no visitors so if we would only buy something it would bring him luck. We had to meet Ram for our day's tour so we said we would visit again tomorrow morning when we (ie IW) had time.
Today we had scheduled the normal tour of major city sites then in the afternoon a motor launch ride to see the Palace on the lake. This was the palace used in the James Bond movie "Octopussy" and we were looking forward to seeing it.
We were disappointed when Ram picked us up and said there would be no launch ride as they had been cancelled due to the low water levels in the lake. 
We spent the morning looking at the City Palace which was nice, but passed on the Temples. We then visited the botanical gardens which again would be magnificent after the monsoon season but we had a pleasant walk around and once again were inundated by touts at the gate and also Indian families who wanted to have their photo taken with us. We are going to miss this celebrity status when we leave India. If we had 1oo Rupees for every photo taken with us (the price some Indians ask when we want to take their photo), we would have paid for our holiday.
We spent the morning looking at the City Palace which was nice, but passed on the Temples. We then visited the botanical gardens which again would be magnificent after the monsoon season but we had a pleasant walk around and once again were inundated by touts at the gate and also Indian families who wanted to have their photo taken with us. We are going to miss this celebrity status when we leave India. If we had 1oo Rupees for every photo taken with us (the price some Indians ask when we want to take their photo), we would have paid for our holiday.
We arrived home about lunch time and had a rest.
Mid afternoon we decided to get off the tourist sites and meet the locals. We went for a walk and then jumped in an auto and gave some vague instructions about where we wanted to go. He nodded in agreement and then proceeded to do what all good auto drivers do and take us to his mate's store which has the "best prices, but you don't have to buy anything just look".
His mate promotes artists which is good but unfortunately we have not taken a liking to Indian art yet. I find it hard to hide my displeasure so wander around the shop looking at stuff while IW is the ever patient visitor listening and chatting. You would think that after 36 years of marriage IW would have caught a little bit of my abrupness when dissatisfied.
We eventually leave the shop, give the auto driver some money and head off on foot. What a great time we had, down the road, round the corner and about 300 shops awaited selling all the things we didn't want. But being white we obviously wanted to buy:
- a rug
- a pashmir
- shoes that are too narrow for our broad feet
- material (IW liked this one)
- jewellery
- candle holders
- drums
- carved elephants with baby elephants inside them (again!)
- carvings of various Hindu gods
- etc etc
We had the time of our life. For about three hours we were with the people, talking and bartering, looking at everything, laughing with them then moving on and actually buying nothing. We eventually hailed an auto and headed back to our hotel for dinner by the lake.
Udaipur, the City of Lakes, is a beautiful place and would be well worth a visit after the monsoons when the lake is filled again.
Palace on the Lake in the evening across the mud flats taken from our outdoor Restaurant
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